The Stage

Hansel und Gretel

Published Thursday 11 December 2008 at 13:00 by George Hall

Humperdinck’s fairy tale opera returns to Covent Garden in a new staging by Patrice Caurier and Moshe Leiser. Unfortunately the magic spell doesn’t quite work this time around.

Part of the problem lies in the pit, where Sir Colin Davies seems curiously disengaged. There’s a lack of character, or a variety of rich colours, in this class post-Wagnerian score.

Caurier and Leiser’s regular designers do a fine professional job, though some of their imagery doesn’t work. The opening cottage scene is unproblematic and Angelika Kirchschlager’s Hansel and Diana Damran’s Gretel are spot-on. Despite solid performances from Thomas Allen and Elizabeth Connell as their parents, they are not quite right either, and when revealed in the armchairs of the dream pantomime sequence in the forest, they strike the wrong note.

The wood turns from nature idyll to threatening environment effectively, but again the two supernatural beings - Pumea Matshikiza’s Sandman and Anita Watson’s Dew Fairy - are unfortunate visually, the latter with a touch of the drag act. Angels with teddy bear faces look distinctly unprepossessing.

Even Anja Silja’s much looked forward to Witch Misses the goal. Why does she have her breasts on display at the start? The high-tech kitchen emulates Richard Jones’ award-winning production without equalling it. The kids hung up at the back are gruesome and when they come back to life and sing, sound unpowered. Somehow the crucial balance of dark and light has been missed.